If you are looking to come to Japan and get a job here, you are looking at a fairly limited set of options. Remember that in Japan (as in most countries), you have to demonstrate that you have a skill set that someone already in Japan does not have. This is a prerequisite, as it were, for obtaining a visa.

Most foreigners that get work here fall into perhaps four different catagories:

1) Entertainers - if you have a legitimate musical or performance skill, you can get an entertainer visa. Alternately, if you look good pole-dancing, you can get this visa.

2) Foreign language instructor - one of the easiest visas/jobs to get, especially if you speak near-fluent English. Having a degree from a university is usually a requirement, but I don't see that it matters which university.

3) Manual labor - there are a lot of workers from poorer countries with little or no education that slip into factory, construction and other difficult, dangerous jobs. Many of them are also staying here illegally. I don't recommend this route.

4) Technical work - this is perhaps the most desirable position, as it certainly pays the most. If you have high skill in a technical field, especially computers or automotives (amongst others), you can get good work developing technology here. Or, you can get very lucrative work translating technical documents from Japanese into English. As I have discovered recently, this is perhaps the highest paying field/language pair in the translation industry. I spent one eight-hour day translating a 20-page microprocessor patent and earned 120,000 yen - and that's for an inexperienced newcomer to the field!

Consider what interests you the most, and plan your education/work to that end. If you want a technical position with high pay, don't get a degree in the humanities. On the other hand, if you enjoy teaching, just go for a degree in English or Japanese and head on over.

Or, if you enjoy pole-dancing, strap on your g-string and you're ready to go!

I don't want to go in Japan and be in the Manual labor sector.
I have been in that sector in France and not that i don't like working in it but it really doesn't feel like you are a part of the society.

Ofc if i have to work in that sector and have no other choice then i will.

Hmm ....

But first of all thank you for the very clear information I was just concerned by the fact that when i search for Jobs in Japan they always want a native English speaking person.

So will a diploma from England be a better thing to go for.
Or my Bulgarian one will do the same thing ?

And can i combine my Photoshop, CorelDraw and so on skills with my English + German Diploma from the univ ?
Like in your opinion what kind of job can i get with that combination ?
Thank you very much

Btw if you have UK citizenship do you need to get visa too ?

Last edited by Dimitree on Wed 09.13.2006 10:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dimitree wrote:I was just concerned by the fact that when i search for Jobs in Japan they always want a native English speaking person.

I have met several non-native English speakers teaching English here in Japan. I can't imagine it would be as easy for you to get an English teaching job as a native, however. Personally, I would bank on other skills.

Dimitree wrote:So will a diploma from England be a better thing to go for.Or my Bulgarian one will do the same thing ?

As long as it's a halfway decent school, I don't think it would matter where you went to school (barring war-torn or poverty-stricken countries, that is). I think what matters more is what the degree is in. A creative writing, literature or philosophy degree isn't going to get you much of a job anywhere in the world (learn from my mistakes, PLEASE).

When I scan through the want-ads here in Japan (in Japanese and in English), most of the jobs that are in high demand (with decent pay) require computing degrees (engineering, networking, programming, webpage design, etc.), mechanical engineering degrees (mostly automotives), electrical engineering (wireless technology, microprocessors, robotics, etc.) and business degrees (advertising, marketing and the like).

If you're dead-set on a humanities degree, by all means go for it. Just be aware that you will struggle much harder for a so-so job, whereas someone with a tech or business degree will have an array of good jobs to choose from. And that holds true anywhere, really. But especially for non-native English speaking foreigners in Japan.

Dimitree wrote:And can i combine my Photoshop, CorelDraw and so on skills with my English + German Diploma from the univ ?

With those skills, I would look at a degree related to computerized image processing. This is currently a growing field here in Japan. Minor in English and German.

Most companies consider foreign language skills to be an added bonus, not your main, solitary skill (unless, of course, you are an interpreter). Companies want accountants and engineers and programmers, etc. And if they can speak (a) foreign language(s), then all the better.

Someone with a language ability and a couple of un-certified skills is not what companies really look for. I don't want to sound mean - I just want to explain what I learned the hard way after graduating from college (and graduate school - I didn't even learn my lesson the first time around!).

Dimitree wrote:Btw if you have UK citizenship do you need to get visa too ?

Mukade wrote:Someone with a language ability and a couple of un-certified skills is not what companies really look for.

This is very true. Many companies think "it'd be great to have a native English speaker around for when we get that international phone call every couple of months", but of course none of them will pay someone to sit around and wait for the phone to ring. What they REALLY want is a normal employee who has the ability to speak perfect English when the need arises.

yeah, what they want to do is pay you to do work.. then not pay you any extra for the extra "translation" work you provide.. pretty much business as usual. give you as little as they possibly can and expect as much of you as possible.

Being Bulgarian is IN, in Virginia beach. We are literally flooded by Bulgarians in Summer. It's pretty cool. In the summer the employee base of our hotel doubles, and all of the others are from various provinces of Bulgaria. Although sometimes they are from other countries. Last year we had a lady that was from Kazakstan. She looked oriental even though she was on the opposite side of India. I figure it was some Mongolish ancestry.

They also had me translate their webpage for them... but for that, they paid me with bookstore gift certificates.

If anyone happens by any of the Yokohama area (or maybe wider?) YMCA's, you'll see my pic in the poster for English classes (In the poster I'm learning English from the real English teacher. Go figure!)

Last edited by keatonatron on Thu 09.14.2006 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

keatonatron wrote:If anyone happens by any of the Yokohama area (or maybe wider?) YMCA's, you'll see my pic in the poster for English classes (In the poster I'm learning English from the real English teacher. Go figure!)

You've gotta be kiding me, the same thing happened to me when I went back in Jaunary to visit the YWCA (yes, not the YMCA) that I used to go to in Osaka. I showed up out of the blue to give everyone a suprise there, but to my suprise, it was I who ended up walking straight into a trap.

Edit:
Sorry, I should probably try to actually add something usfull to the topic here, so just let me say that I too would recommend aiming for something that's really going to set you apart from everyone else.

I ended up realizing that a little too late here, and is why I've decided to go back to school to try and further myself, but I've found that being a jack-of-all-trades just doesn't work to well. Yeah, I can do a lot of differient things fairly well, but not one of them is my "I can do this better than anyone else" type of skill.

Last edited by Justin on Thu 09.14.2006 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.